Missing Misty Mysticism

By tuck 12 May 2002

Part Two: Missing Misty Mysticism

<p>this section involves  a meandering lead-up to hinting at present day motivations, so keep that end in mind to avoid getting lost.</p>

<p>i was put into a special program for smart kids like many of you probably were when i was 10 and didnt have to go regular school on fridays. i won  regional and state championships for Olympics of the Mind competitions and even competed in the world championships. i tested unusually high in creative application, spacial reasoning, and writing.  mentioning this relatively meaningless garbage is only to set up a comparative frame of my early history. soon after all the nerdery intensified, i was compelled to end it all. the nerdification, i mean. i stopped doing the after school young engineers club and readers society and instead chose to play sports.  this may take some explaining considering  who the likely readers of this are, but ive been thinking about it lately so it wont be too hard to write about it clearly.  </p>

<p>at the time, i liked the roughness and the exhaustion. the crashes and bumps and smell of smeared-grass. it was a smell of reality.  i liked taking my glasses off.  as anders recently mentioned, it does feel good to get exercise and the reason is simple. but for now i would like to bring up another reason why sports were appealing to my young geeky self: i liked mastering  the physics of action.   there was a degree of greatness in being able launch a projectile by hand at XX mph into your target, eluding a swinging obstacle,  especially if you could make it curve on a trajectory which tricked the eyes of, and eluded even the most precisely coordinated obstacle-swinger. theres also a shivering glory in the ability to intercept an airborne, speeding orb when you have to make a split second decision about where you anticipate the ball will be when your bat eventually comes around enough to strike it.   success here results in a feeling you cant understand unless youve grown it yourself.  controlling your body like this is a special skill resulting in a special satisfaction shrouded in a mist of special mysticism. its a time when your body and mind are working in unity. at a higher level of performance, your mind isnt sending signals to your muscles to swing!  or kick!, its your mind itself swinging and kicking,  your whole body becomes one, big, silent brain. this is the crux of what i would like to think will be a main topic of this piece of writing, somehow.  </p>

<p>incidentally, i would also like to  quickly mention, as it will probably enlighten a bunch of you, that this is how some people  are actually able to watch a baseball game and not die of boredom, a question we all ask ourselves and others from time to time. i suppose the same thing is true of golf (which is painful to admit) and, here in china, ping pong. that is to say, as we watch with an air of superiority about us and point out how silly the game is, or how idiotic the fans are for being so enraptured, we essentially generalize and assume that everyone is watching the same game that we are. but, depending on their experience, they arent. some of the observers of these sports know what it is like to have conquered action and master the properties of  dynamic movement. they have an understanding which we wont have unless weve played enough to appreciate these certain elements.  when there is a perfect pitch, or whack, or shot, they not only marvel, but they often nod and remember. in way, there is a sharing taking place between actor and observer.   this can be a very subtle and elusive idea and the fans themselves may not even be able to explain this and are thusly easy for the uninitiated to criticize.  </p>

<p>ive often wondered how it can be so easy for someone who  watches a ballet  with appreciation and awe be so critical and demeaning towards other areas of athletic performance (and vise versa) despite the degrees of similitude. these  range in everything from grace of movement, self-expression, concentration, to the utterly impressive feats of neuro-motor coordination and the grandeur of highest-level human physiological capabilities which are tied, in an essential way, to deepest-level human mental capabilities.</p>